Scientists of the Soil Science and Geopharmacy Research Group of the University of Granada (Spain), directed by Rafael Delgado, have discovered and characterized a new type of atmospheric aerosols named ‘iberulites’, which could be useful for the study of relevant atmospheric reactions from Earth.

Researchers José Luis Díaz Hernández, of the Andalusian Research and Farming, Fishing, Food, and Ecological Production Training Institute and Jesús Párraga Martínez, of the Department of Edaphology and Farming Chemistry of the University of Granada, have insisted that such iberulites form in the troposphere from mineral small grains emitted from desert soils and bordering regions, burst into the atmosphere in a chaotic way, collect water vapour which becomes condensed and make up little rain drops.

"As we all know, the Sahara is a powerful emitter of atmospheric dust, which travels to the Amazon and Caribbean regions, including Florida, also reaching the North of Europe, Israel and even the Himalayas. Such mineral grains, which contain iron, calcium, sulphur and sometimes phosphorus, fertilize the soil, forests and plankton of the oceans, lakes and seas they go through," they write.

German athlete Wojtek Czyz, running with a space-tech enhanced prosthetic leg, set a new world record at the Paralympics 2008 in Beijing, reaching 6.50 m and beating the previous world record by 27 cm.

In spring 2004, ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme (TTP) technology broker MST Aerospace met with Wojtek Czyz and his trainer to perform a pre-screening of the most crucial elements of the prosthesis used by Czyz. Having lost part of his left leg three years before in a sports accident, he now uses a prosthesis in two athletic disciplines: long jump and sprint competitions.

The advantage of these space materials is that they are extremely strong and at the same time lighter than conventional products available, both important advantages for top athletes’ performance. The problem with Czyz’ previous prosthesis was that it tended to break when he performed to the maximum of his capacity.

Sarah Palin lost the room immediately after Joe Biden choked up, say Karen Kohn Bradley and Karen Studd, certified movement analysts who study the nonverbal and movement behaviors of political leaders.

They don't say (though it's easy to guess) their political party so you have to calibrate their analysis carefully, but they do say that on a movement level, both Vice-Presidential candidates showed a sense of urgency and the increasing speed of their deliveries meant that, halfway through, everyone in the huge nationwide audience was in some sort of trance, like watching a merry-go-round spin faster and faster, punctuated only by strange smiles.

Obesity is a health problem in western countries in part from an increase in the mass and number of white fat cells. Because white fat cells are post-mitotic, meaning that they cannot divide, scientists have hypothesized that a population of fat precursor cells must exist in the fat depot in order to produce new fat cells. But identifying these fat precursor cells has been difficult.

Scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Rockefeller University have discovered an important fat precursor cell that may in time explain how changes in the numbers of fat cells might increase and lead to obesity. The finding, published in Cell, could also have implications for understanding how fat cells affect conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Reading is good for the brain but researchers at Duke Children's Hospital say a good book can also help kids lose weight. It just has to be the right kind of book.

The Duke researchers asked obese females aged 9 to 13 who were already in a comprehensive weight loss program to read an age-appropriate novel called Lake Rescue (Beacon Street Press) - a book carefully crafted with the help of pediatric experts to include specific healthy lifestyle and weight management guidance, as well as positive messages and strong role models.

Want to cause a fight between anthropologists and evolutionary biologists? Throw out an opinion on whether early societies were heirarchical or egalitarian.

Great apes societies are very heirarchical despite the presence of alliances and 'political' maneuvering but a new paper in PLoS says the first coalition-based societies of equals (they use the term 'egalitarian') occurred tens of thousands of years ago, and that has implications for the context of social networks and cognitive evolution.

Great apes' societies have each animal occupying a particular place in the existing dominance hierarchy. A major function of coalitions in apes is to maintain or change the dominance ranking. When an alpha male is well established, he usually can intimidate any hostile coalition or the entire community.